Mouthpiece Throat Variations

[Mark]

You have two identical mouthpieces, with the exception that one has a significantly larger throat than the other. What differences do you expect when playing the two mouthpieces?

[ThomasP]

I think that centering of pitches would be more difficult. Basically if there's a tight throat your embouchure wouldn't have to be as precise as if you had a larger throat. That being said, I think the sound changes as well. I would guess that a tighter throat would give you a cleaner and brighter sound as opposed to a large throat that would provide a darker and less articulate. The large throat mouthpiece is still capable of producing a clean sound, it's just more difficult and takes more precision than the smaller throat.

Those are my guesses on what would be the difference, now someone tell me why I'm wrong...

[MartyNeilan]

The larger throat typically "takes more air" given all other things identical, although the shape often has as much to do as size.

[imperialbari]

I am not a mouthpiece maker, but I have modified most of my mouthpieces.

For me the throat is made up of a number of parameters:

a: The curve approaching the narrowest point of the air passage. On well-designed mouthpieces this curve counteracts the occurrence of turbulence. I am very reluctant to modify that area, but have done so in a few cases.

b: The diameter of the narrowest point.

A small diameter gives an easy attack for less experienced players, but may have more experienced players crack their notes, because they overload the mouthpiece with air, when they want to get some sound put through the instrument. A small diameter flattens the uppermost register.

A large diameter makes the attack much faster for players with a trained air support. The sound can be made much louder with less distortion. But then a larger diameter is more exhausting to play.

A larger diameter will raise the pitch of the upper register. If the diameter surpasses certain proportions it also will raise the pitch of the low register.

c: The "length" of the "point" with the narrowest diameter. Is it just a point on curve (preferably a smooth curve, that is a continuously differentiable one)? Or is the throat a cylindrical tubing of some length?

The cylindrical version, especially if combined with a small diameter, diminishes the player’s control over the intonation.

The "point" version puts the player in maximum control, but it also demands him/her to exercise that control on every note played. There are no free rides intonationwise.

d: The curve from the throat into the backbore also is significant. It can be a gentle bend into a funnel with straight-line profiles. Or it can be a more complex curve into a so-called barrel shape. Personally I prefer the term of "candle-shape".

The whole matter is quite complex. With experience one gets the ability so "see" the sound coming out of a mouthpiece, if one knows the instrument, for which it is intended.

Many of the parameters will be found in standard combinations, which more or less used to represent national traditions/schools.

This posting is based on my own experiences from piccolo trumpet through BBb basses. However I would never have dared to experiment, if I had not read the texts of Vincent Bach and Denis Wick.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[imperialbari]

Slightly smaller throats seem to help when playing very soft.

Slightly larger throats seem to help when playing very low and loud.

There are some "hybrid" throats - found on a couple of brands of stainless steel 'pieces in particular (venturi with "set-in" throat) that seem to be a good compromise between the two tendencies.

This gets me very interested!

But I don’t get: "venturi with "set-in" throat".

Are we talking of anything like the double cup trumpet and trombone mouthpieces from Jet-Tone of 25 or 30 years ago?

It is well known, that I am into large "anything", when it comes to mouthpieces.

On euph and tuba I don’t like, what the recorder world calls "chiff" (attack transients).

Due to lack of proper tools my backbores have some odd profile curves. The barrel shape only starts somewhere around midways down the backbores. Gives a very full bottom sound and no lack of upper octaves.

The two main problems with my concept is pp staccato and then stamina in continuous band playing.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[imperialbari]

These mouthpieces have a throat with a normal appearance, but the beginning of the throat is not the narrowest point. The narrowest point occurs later in the backbore.

Then we in a way are not too far from the said Jet-Tone concept. Only the 2nd "cup" is far narrower, deeper, and funnel shaped.

I once made such conversion on a Giardinelli J4 horn mouthpiece, which is already designed for low horn playing. I also reamed out the backbore a bit. Wonderful for playing Mahler 4 as 4th horn, a really prominent low horn part due to the lack of any heavy artillery: no trombones and no tuba. It may not be Mahler’s most magnificent symphony, but it is just so beautiful.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[windshieldbug]

What differences do you expect when playing the two mouthpieces?

Depends on the sizes of the mouthpieces to begin with, and the throat/backbore shape.

In general, with a large bore horn, I expect the horn to have a clearer, more present low sound the larger the throat size UNTIL it becomes too large; then I expect the upper register to go flat and be hard to center.

[iiipopes]

Klaus - you'd find the Conn mouthpiece book concurs, and goes into even greater detail with comparative pitch charts, etc. If you can't find a link for it, I may have it in pdf form on an archive disc somewhere. Let me know if you'd like me to look for it.

[imperialbari]

Klaus - you'd find the Conn mouthpiece book concurs, and goes into even greater detail with comparative pitch charts, etc. If you can't find a link for it, I may have it in pdf form on an archive disc somewhere. Let me know if you'd like me to look for it.

Made a search for the said book, but didn’t find it. What I saw from UMI, mostly looked like they had taken over the Bach line of mouthpieces.

So if you would provide me a link or even send me the Conn text, I would be very grateful.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre